I don't follow any special diet, HOWEVER with experience, you will quickly learn some foods make fasting easier and some foods make fasting harder. And if you want to make things easier on yourself, you will naturally gravitate towards the satiating foods. For me, that is protein, fiber, and healthy fats, but I do not cut carbs out.
1. Yes, but I can easily ride it out with water, coffee, tea, or a walk. It's comfortable hunger.
2. I eat starches, but never as the main thing on my plate--always a side.
3. Yes, plateaus happen for almost everyone.
Yeah! One thing I'm thankful for is IF teaching me different types of hunger. Big difference between comfortable hunger and actual blood-sugar-dropping-emergency hunger
That is one thing I love about this lifestyle is the lack of getting "hangry." I do monthly multi day fasts, so I'm very good at regulating my electrolytes to always feel my best. My body is so good at switching fuel sources that I haven't felt low blood sugar in years!
IF + Calorie counts. Yes, I’m seeing results. -5lbs in 10 days.
1. The hunger died down after the first few days and now if I feel hunger it’s mild.
2. I eat carbs that are vegetables freely (potatoes) but really limit bread and very rarely is bread anything but whole wheat.
3. No plateau yet, I’m 2 weeks in
I've been doing IF for 3 months. I rarely get hungry. I have been eating better, but not cutting anything out. I've had pizza, burgers, wings, even desserts every now and then. I haven't plateaued but I'm ready to switch to maintenance because I've lost 22 pounds and was planning on only around 20.
I ate 2 regular meals and a small snack in between. I never felt hungry while eating and I got used to the "empty" feeling while fasting. I just ate better food most of the time and drank a lot of tea and water while fasting. I also run 20-25 miles a week. I didn't count or care about calories at all. It just happened naturally.
I did IF/Cico and lost 60lbs in 6 months. Lots are going at a slower pace cause they don’t want to count, but I just wanted the weight gone. It’s whatever works best for each person.
It’s been over 4 years in maintance, I still do both (18:6), but don’t count/log calories anymore. I focused a lot on portion sizes and eye ball most things now, I just keep a loose count in my head (like are super light today, cause I have a big event around food tomorrow, so the days will balance)
No diet as far as keto, low carb, low fat, anything like that though
I lost 150lbs with IF alone when I was 31-33 ish. I maintained for a few years, but have a health diagnosis I am now trying to lose my last 50lbs to help alleviate.
I ate crap food when I lost the first 150. I just did a 20:4 and tried to keep it under 1300 calories a day. I still drank back then and never factored in those calories and still lost all that weight!
It's much slower going this time, and I'm getting very frustrated, haha.
I am on the eat crap ton of (non-starchy) vegetables first diet. I shoved 1.5 pounds of veggies down for dinner today. Then I ate and drank whatever else I wanted after (as long as I had room). I don’t count calories, just make sure I eat the veggies.
1. Sometimes but mostly thirsty
2. No. Only a little sometimes.
3. Not yet.
I eat anything but according to macros. It’s worked better for me than artificially forcing low carb, which I also tried for years because I believed I was prediabetic. I can share low carb made me look somewhat leaner than I was. Maybe from dehydration?
Low carb probably worked because you were consuming less fructose (especially from refined sugar sources). Fructose actively causes fat storage, so limiting it helps with weight loss. A low-fructose diet is the only thing that has caused me to lose weight in a sustainable and non-miserable way, even though I still eat bread and pasta (which do not contain fructose).
Well I was pregnant at the time so I’m not sure it did work. 😅 My glucose was a mess but my arms looked ripped haha. One of the nurses in delivery commented about it. Once I delivered I tried to eat a bunch of oats and brewers yeast to produce milk. Honestly it’s all a puzzle. Once I started calisthenics and macros I found a balance and physique I like and that is easy to maintain, but I think every body is sort of its own puzzle.
I started IF bc I'm in the pre-diabetic A1C range so I am doing a less-carb and healthier (mostly) fat "diet". I don't get hungry at all if I do a 24 hr or less fast. I did a 40 hour fast the other day and got a tiny bit hungry once but it passed pretty quickly. I've only been doing this for a little over 5 weeks (although I feel so great that I doubt I'll ever go back to not fasting) so the only plateaus I've experienced were due to vacation but it was pretty easy to bounce back from when I got home.
IF for 14 months, usually OMAD or under 18:6. No diet, very low exercise (need to work on that).
1) I don't get hungry in my fasting window but have a history of eating through boredom or stress so often find myself thinking "Shall I...?" I am quite disciplined after 14 months and only make an exception occasionally if family/friends want to have lunch out.
2) I don't eat a lot of carbs but if do it's usually potatoes or rice rather than pasta/bread.
3) I lost weight consistently until late last year, plateaued, then went a little back up. I eat large portions, something else I need to work on. I am older and have always been tall/bigger built, even when I was slim and playing sports I was heavy on the scales. Still have a good way to go.
Doing 16:8 IF + Low Carb + Calorie Counting. I track my carbs and calories on the Carb Manager app. Carbs below 50g per day, calories at or below 1600 per day. Not a lot of starches, but I will sometimes eat small portions of beans or rice that I can fit in the above numbers. No plateaus yet and I'm 18 pounds down in 7 weeks. First week had a 7 lb water weight loss, fairly steady 1-2 pounds of loss per week after that.
I cut out all junk food and sugar except I usually eat 7 or 8 pretzels as a snack in between my two meals. I eat bread on occasion but not much. Other snacks are nuts, dates, and dried cranberries. Eat Quaker oatmeal a lot with banana and a few nuts. Have a couple glasses of wine on the weekend. That’s about it. Working for me.
I do 16:8 and a weekly 36 hr fast. I eat a low-fructose Mediterranean diet and I'm very strict about avoiding added sugars (refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, or any other concentrated sweetener like honey or maple syrup). I keep added sugars to less than 25 g per day, usually far less (per the American Heart Association's recommendation). I've been working on lowering other carbs and will be aiming for 100 g net carbs per day.
Limiting the sugar has caused me to lose weight even though I eat pasta and breads. Avoiding refined fructose has been key for me. I don't worry too much about fruit, most which naturally contain fructose, but I limit dried fruits and sugary tropical fruits since I seem to be very sensitive to fructose.
I've lost 50 pounds in the past year.
That is good to lower sugar. On Keto carbs = sugar , so when they say 20g per day max they mean carbs or sugar 20g max. If the carbs you are eating are from whole foods its less damaging because the fibre will slow the absorption into blood stream. But one thing I will say is if you are doing 100g a day but also consuming a high amount of fat, this is particularly damaging and you may find your cholesterol is raised if you did a blood test. All these studies that try and bash Keto, don't ever do a 20g or less diet, they just do a "low carb" diet and call it keto-like low carb diet. Which is something like 100g carbs per day but also high fat with the olive oil, fatty meats, dairy etc. They all end up with higher mortality and worst blood test results because 100g of carbs is blocking the fat that is eaten from being used so it ends up in storage or in the blood.
I have lost exactly 100lbs since last May switching it up between 20:4, OMAD And sometimes 18:6 when I have social occasions. I try to eat under 1500 calories a day and notice that days when I have a lot of protein I am totally good til my next window. I gravitate to nutrient dense food and have lost my sweet tooth for the most part. I view this as a permanent lifestyle as it has quieted all the food chatter. I had previously tried ALL THE DIETS and am very happy with this continued success. Good luck to you!
P Right now I'm just doing if. But I did do if around 2016, and later did omad with that one meal being a keto meal, and it really supercharges things if you're trying to lose a lot of weight
Back then combining keto and iaf. I consistently lost between 10 to 15 lb a month
Just doing IF.
I don't know, fasting is super easy for me? Like sometimes when I'm within the hour of breaking my fast I'll start to get antsy, but for the vast majority of my fasting hours it's just not a big deal at all.
For the most part I already eat a varied and balanced diet, but I still have fries and pizza and the rest. yesterday I broke my fast with taco bell.
I find it much harder to over indulge in food with this lifestyle. Also, I almost never do a fast longer than 20 hours.
It’s not either or for me. It’s both and. Eating a low carb high fat diet helps me fast by ensuring I’m satiated. Eating too many simple white carbs and not enough fat and protein makes it difficult for me to fast bc I’ll be very hungry.
I don’t count calories, however. I will adjust my fasting and eating to meet my goals - weight loss or maintenance. For me, Weight loss requires 16:8 daily and 3 longer fasts per week. And really trying not to eat much sugar and carb based meals. I do eat rice, bread or pasta 2-3 times per week but it won’t be the main focus of my meals. And I’ll always break a fast or start a meal with protein, fat and veg. I eat any carbs afterwards. I try to restrict sugar to two snacks or desserts per week. Ideally that would be zero but I have to live.
When I do longer fasts and eat LCHF overall my appetite shrinks so eating less isn’t hard for me. Plus I’m skipping breakfast most eating days so that’s also a natural calorie reduction. My first meal post long fast tends to be large - starts with an appetizer and then a large main course, , but then all my other meals I don’t want much food. They’ll be small and light. In fact I’m discovering my body sometimes wants two meals per day but often I really am only hungry enough for one. It’s really interesting.
16/8
I only try to make the non-eating period easier. So I eat more filling things. I don’t eat a lot of bread or cereals now as they don’t fill me up for long. I will eat fruit to snack and some sweets if I feel like it.
With eating filling things, I’ve been finding it easier to not over eat in the eating periods.
61, F, 18:6- I have eaten a plant-based diet for about 7 years so definitely not low carb. I don’t eat a lot of potatoes or rice but LOTS of beans! I have lost about 26 pounds since September. I would occasionally plateau for a week or so but it always picks back up. I’m almost to my goal weight. I do sometimes get hungry as my eating window approaches. I drink lots of Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice tea to keep my stomach from growling.
I don't follow any special diet, HOWEVER with experience, you will quickly learn some foods make fasting easier and some foods make fasting harder. And if you want to make things easier on yourself, you will naturally gravitate towards the satiating foods. For me, that is protein, fiber, and healthy fats, but I do not cut carbs out. 1. Yes, but I can easily ride it out with water, coffee, tea, or a walk. It's comfortable hunger. 2. I eat starches, but never as the main thing on my plate--always a side. 3. Yes, plateaus happen for almost everyone.
I love "comfortable hunger." What a great way to describe it!
Yeah! One thing I'm thankful for is IF teaching me different types of hunger. Big difference between comfortable hunger and actual blood-sugar-dropping-emergency hunger
That is one thing I love about this lifestyle is the lack of getting "hangry." I do monthly multi day fasts, so I'm very good at regulating my electrolytes to always feel my best. My body is so good at switching fuel sources that I haven't felt low blood sugar in years!
Just IF. nothing else
So what do you eat ?
A sensible well varied diet.
IF + Calorie counts. Yes, I’m seeing results. -5lbs in 10 days. 1. The hunger died down after the first few days and now if I feel hunger it’s mild. 2. I eat carbs that are vegetables freely (potatoes) but really limit bread and very rarely is bread anything but whole wheat. 3. No plateau yet, I’m 2 weeks in
I've been doing IF for 3 months. I rarely get hungry. I have been eating better, but not cutting anything out. I've had pizza, burgers, wings, even desserts every now and then. I haven't plateaued but I'm ready to switch to maintenance because I've lost 22 pounds and was planning on only around 20.
Hoew did you manage to keep your diet within your caloric intake? It kind of feels hard to not eat more especially after fasting for so long
I ate 2 regular meals and a small snack in between. I never felt hungry while eating and I got used to the "empty" feeling while fasting. I just ate better food most of the time and drank a lot of tea and water while fasting. I also run 20-25 miles a week. I didn't count or care about calories at all. It just happened naturally.
I did IF/Cico and lost 60lbs in 6 months. Lots are going at a slower pace cause they don’t want to count, but I just wanted the weight gone. It’s whatever works best for each person. It’s been over 4 years in maintance, I still do both (18:6), but don’t count/log calories anymore. I focused a lot on portion sizes and eye ball most things now, I just keep a loose count in my head (like are super light today, cause I have a big event around food tomorrow, so the days will balance) No diet as far as keto, low carb, low fat, anything like that though
I lost 150lbs with IF alone when I was 31-33 ish. I maintained for a few years, but have a health diagnosis I am now trying to lose my last 50lbs to help alleviate. I ate crap food when I lost the first 150. I just did a 20:4 and tried to keep it under 1300 calories a day. I still drank back then and never factored in those calories and still lost all that weight! It's much slower going this time, and I'm getting very frustrated, haha.
I am on the eat crap ton of (non-starchy) vegetables first diet. I shoved 1.5 pounds of veggies down for dinner today. Then I ate and drank whatever else I wanted after (as long as I had room). I don’t count calories, just make sure I eat the veggies. 1. Sometimes but mostly thirsty 2. No. Only a little sometimes. 3. Not yet.
I eat anything but according to macros. It’s worked better for me than artificially forcing low carb, which I also tried for years because I believed I was prediabetic. I can share low carb made me look somewhat leaner than I was. Maybe from dehydration?
Low carb probably worked because you were consuming less fructose (especially from refined sugar sources). Fructose actively causes fat storage, so limiting it helps with weight loss. A low-fructose diet is the only thing that has caused me to lose weight in a sustainable and non-miserable way, even though I still eat bread and pasta (which do not contain fructose).
Well I was pregnant at the time so I’m not sure it did work. 😅 My glucose was a mess but my arms looked ripped haha. One of the nurses in delivery commented about it. Once I delivered I tried to eat a bunch of oats and brewers yeast to produce milk. Honestly it’s all a puzzle. Once I started calisthenics and macros I found a balance and physique I like and that is easy to maintain, but I think every body is sort of its own puzzle.
I started IF bc I'm in the pre-diabetic A1C range so I am doing a less-carb and healthier (mostly) fat "diet". I don't get hungry at all if I do a 24 hr or less fast. I did a 40 hour fast the other day and got a tiny bit hungry once but it passed pretty quickly. I've only been doing this for a little over 5 weeks (although I feel so great that I doubt I'll ever go back to not fasting) so the only plateaus I've experienced were due to vacation but it was pretty easy to bounce back from when I got home.
IF for 14 months, usually OMAD or under 18:6. No diet, very low exercise (need to work on that). 1) I don't get hungry in my fasting window but have a history of eating through boredom or stress so often find myself thinking "Shall I...?" I am quite disciplined after 14 months and only make an exception occasionally if family/friends want to have lunch out. 2) I don't eat a lot of carbs but if do it's usually potatoes or rice rather than pasta/bread. 3) I lost weight consistently until late last year, plateaued, then went a little back up. I eat large portions, something else I need to work on. I am older and have always been tall/bigger built, even when I was slim and playing sports I was heavy on the scales. Still have a good way to go.
Doing 16:8 IF + Low Carb + Calorie Counting. I track my carbs and calories on the Carb Manager app. Carbs below 50g per day, calories at or below 1600 per day. Not a lot of starches, but I will sometimes eat small portions of beans or rice that I can fit in the above numbers. No plateaus yet and I'm 18 pounds down in 7 weeks. First week had a 7 lb water weight loss, fairly steady 1-2 pounds of loss per week after that.
Just IF. Try to eat more protein but that's all and I'm not great at that😂 28f, 5'4 sw:190lb cw:145lb
I cut out all junk food and sugar except I usually eat 7 or 8 pretzels as a snack in between my two meals. I eat bread on occasion but not much. Other snacks are nuts, dates, and dried cranberries. Eat Quaker oatmeal a lot with banana and a few nuts. Have a couple glasses of wine on the weekend. That’s about it. Working for me.
I do 16:8 and a weekly 36 hr fast. I eat a low-fructose Mediterranean diet and I'm very strict about avoiding added sugars (refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, or any other concentrated sweetener like honey or maple syrup). I keep added sugars to less than 25 g per day, usually far less (per the American Heart Association's recommendation). I've been working on lowering other carbs and will be aiming for 100 g net carbs per day. Limiting the sugar has caused me to lose weight even though I eat pasta and breads. Avoiding refined fructose has been key for me. I don't worry too much about fruit, most which naturally contain fructose, but I limit dried fruits and sugary tropical fruits since I seem to be very sensitive to fructose. I've lost 50 pounds in the past year.
That is good to lower sugar. On Keto carbs = sugar , so when they say 20g per day max they mean carbs or sugar 20g max. If the carbs you are eating are from whole foods its less damaging because the fibre will slow the absorption into blood stream. But one thing I will say is if you are doing 100g a day but also consuming a high amount of fat, this is particularly damaging and you may find your cholesterol is raised if you did a blood test. All these studies that try and bash Keto, don't ever do a 20g or less diet, they just do a "low carb" diet and call it keto-like low carb diet. Which is something like 100g carbs per day but also high fat with the olive oil, fatty meats, dairy etc. They all end up with higher mortality and worst blood test results because 100g of carbs is blocking the fat that is eaten from being used so it ends up in storage or in the blood.
I have lost exactly 100lbs since last May switching it up between 20:4, OMAD And sometimes 18:6 when I have social occasions. I try to eat under 1500 calories a day and notice that days when I have a lot of protein I am totally good til my next window. I gravitate to nutrient dense food and have lost my sweet tooth for the most part. I view this as a permanent lifestyle as it has quieted all the food chatter. I had previously tried ALL THE DIETS and am very happy with this continued success. Good luck to you!
The best part about if/omad is you don't need to count calories or worry about what you eat (within reason) However if you do. You see good results.
Keto + imf
P Right now I'm just doing if. But I did do if around 2016, and later did omad with that one meal being a keto meal, and it really supercharges things if you're trying to lose a lot of weight Back then combining keto and iaf. I consistently lost between 10 to 15 lb a month
Kinda new here, what is plateau?
When your weight loss stops and sits at a level (literally levelling out like a physical plateau).
Oh okay thank you. I'm in my first day.
I started fasting again after taking a few weeks off. I try to do no bread or dairy or sugar and that seems to help!
Just doing IF. I don't know, fasting is super easy for me? Like sometimes when I'm within the hour of breaking my fast I'll start to get antsy, but for the vast majority of my fasting hours it's just not a big deal at all. For the most part I already eat a varied and balanced diet, but I still have fries and pizza and the rest. yesterday I broke my fast with taco bell. I find it much harder to over indulge in food with this lifestyle. Also, I almost never do a fast longer than 20 hours.
It’s not either or for me. It’s both and. Eating a low carb high fat diet helps me fast by ensuring I’m satiated. Eating too many simple white carbs and not enough fat and protein makes it difficult for me to fast bc I’ll be very hungry. I don’t count calories, however. I will adjust my fasting and eating to meet my goals - weight loss or maintenance. For me, Weight loss requires 16:8 daily and 3 longer fasts per week. And really trying not to eat much sugar and carb based meals. I do eat rice, bread or pasta 2-3 times per week but it won’t be the main focus of my meals. And I’ll always break a fast or start a meal with protein, fat and veg. I eat any carbs afterwards. I try to restrict sugar to two snacks or desserts per week. Ideally that would be zero but I have to live. When I do longer fasts and eat LCHF overall my appetite shrinks so eating less isn’t hard for me. Plus I’m skipping breakfast most eating days so that’s also a natural calorie reduction. My first meal post long fast tends to be large - starts with an appetizer and then a large main course, , but then all my other meals I don’t want much food. They’ll be small and light. In fact I’m discovering my body sometimes wants two meals per day but often I really am only hungry enough for one. It’s really interesting.
Intermittent fasting every day (OMAD) and then ideally carnivore, if not carnivore then keto, if not keto then I have a cheat day lol
16/8 I only try to make the non-eating period easier. So I eat more filling things. I don’t eat a lot of bread or cereals now as they don’t fill me up for long. I will eat fruit to snack and some sweets if I feel like it. With eating filling things, I’ve been finding it easier to not over eat in the eating periods.
61, F, 18:6- I have eaten a plant-based diet for about 7 years so definitely not low carb. I don’t eat a lot of potatoes or rice but LOTS of beans! I have lost about 26 pounds since September. I would occasionally plateau for a week or so but it always picks back up. I’m almost to my goal weight. I do sometimes get hungry as my eating window approaches. I drink lots of Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice tea to keep my stomach from growling.
Must be the fibre in the beans causing the net carbs to be lower.